


Sovereignty

by sv_you_know_who_I_am



Series: A Court of War and Starlight One-Shots [12]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: F/M, NSFW, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-29
Updated: 2016-06-29
Packaged: 2018-07-18 22:39:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7333438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sv_you_know_who_I_am/pseuds/sv_you_know_who_I_am
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mor has been rescued from Hybern’s clutches, but the danger has led both Azriel and Mor to reconsider their relationship of the past five centuries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sovereignty

**Author's Note:**

> Setting: The Spring Court, after Chapter 50 of “A Court of War and Starlight,” my ACOTAR 3 fanfiction.
> 
> This fic is a companion to ACOWAS, and it directly addresses plot points from the fic. It should be fairly easy to understand without context, however.

 

_She was safe, she was safe, she was safe. Thank you, thank you, thank you._

These words comprised most of Azriel’s thoughts as he lifted Mor into his arms and took off from the courtyard of the Spring Court manor, the predawn air whipping through her golden hair and filling his nose with her scent--cherries and citrus and mountain breeze. He had missed it--missed her so badly it was a deep pain within him. And he knew it would end, knew he’d have to put her down, but damn him if he didn’t want to keep holding her like this for eternity.

“Azriel!” Mor barked. “Take me back--we need to go after Feyre!”

“We will,” he promised, his voice thick. “But you’re in no condition to fight just yet. We’ll take you to Amren, and then believe me--I wouldn’t dream of holding you back.” The words dredged up within him the agony that had stricken him when he had laid eyes on her bound in that stone necklace, the magic of which kept her submissive and pliant--the very opposite of what he knew her to be. Azriel moved the King of Hybern up one place higher on his list of people he wanted to carve up very slowly. Now he was right beneath Keir.

Azriel banked toward the copse of trees where he’d left Amren and Nesta earlier and landed on the ground, soft as a shadow. He gently lowered Mor down, bracing his arm across her back in case her legs were weak. She gripped his shoulder briefly as she adjusted herself, turning at last to look at him. Her brown eyes knocked the breath out of him, and his eyes scanned the beautiful curve of her cheek, the line of her jaw, the perfect bow of her lips . . .

She had lost weight. Not much, but enough for him to notice.

“I’m sorry,” he rasped out, his intense focus on every point of contact between their bodies.

Her lips parted. “What?”

“I didn’t come for you sooner.”

Mor’s lips formed a tiny frown, and she raised her slender hand to press against his cheek. “But you came, Az. I knew you would.”

Azriel sucked in a breath, trying not to reveal how very much he loved her caress. He laid his scarred hand over hers and lowered it from his face. “Let’s go,” he said, and he led her through the trees to where Amren was waiting.

-

It was like she hadn’t breathed in a month. The moment Azriel had burned through that stone necklace with his Siphons like blue fire, she had breathed in deep and blinked away the haze, as though awakening from a sleepless dream.

She had been aware of every moment, heard every conversation and seen every horror as Hybern had exerted his control over the denizens of the Spring Court. She had been forced to sit beside him as some sort of pet queen, silent and unable to intervene as he had tortured and schemed.

She couldn’t wait for the day she could plunge her sword into his stomach. And twist.

It had not appeared that Hybern knew she could see and hear just fine, for he took no precautions about his conversations around her. She knew everything--everything about the fae gifts and his plans for the Stone Danann. She’d seen his frustration at the uselessness of the mortal queens, who had become mere shells, unable to do or give anything that he’d wanted. They couldn’t tell him how to take down the wall, couldn’t alter the Treaty, couldn’t do anything that he’d planned on using them for. It was something of a miracle that he hadn’t killed them already, but Mor supposed that he still imagined a purpose for them--whether or not they would be able to fulfill it.

Just like he had imagined a purpose for her.

She’d seen it in his eyes the moment he’d realized what she was when they’d stormed his castle on Hybern--he knew she was the Morrigan, the inheritor of truth magic and so much more. It didn’t surprise her that he’d grabbed her on Calanmai--though it did surprise her that he’d succeeded.

It wasn’t just because she knew where the Fortunate Isle was, though that was a large reason why he had been so interested in her. It had just as much to do with the power that ran in her blood that she could gift to him if she pleased . . . though of course, she never would. But her power, her _true_ gift as the Morrigan . . . there was only one she considered worthy, and he wore no crown.

Though she wondered if he would even accept her gift if she offered it to him.

Still, there had been only one face she had longed to see in that long month, when Jurian had spat at her and Hybern had lusted for her--both unable to harm her thanks to the promise that Feyre had wrested from them. She wanted to kiss her High Lady for that, it was true, but her heart had almost burst when she’d glimpsed the blue power and smelled the worn leather, musk, and straw that was so _Azriel_. He’d come for her.

She’d known he would, deep in her truth magic--she knew as sure as her own bones that Azriel would not abandon her. And so it hadn’t been a trouble to wait, knowing that he would come, that he would snatch her away and break her out so they could rain hellfire on Jurian and Hybern together.

Still, he was right--the captivity had made her weaker than she liked, and Amren’s magic would be able to restore her. So she allowed him to guide her through the trees to where Amren was waiting beside the Cauldron with Nesta.

Amren leapt up at their approach and was before them in a blink, taking Mor’s wrist in her hand as though taking the measure of her. “Mor,” was all she said.

“Amren,” Mor said in return, her eyes flashing at the sight of her odd, ancient friend. Azriel stepped away and let Amren examine Mor, though Mor missed him the second he stepped away. Mor stiffened as a burst of magic shot through her at Amren’s prompting, and she drew a deep breath, allowing the strength to flow in her blood as it had before she’d been taken.

“He didn’t touch you, did he?” Amren asked, her silver eyes flashed and her teeth bared.

Mor’s mouth twitched. “He couldn’t if he’d tried, thanks to Feyre.”

“That clever girl,” Amren muttered, looking proud. “Where is she?”

“A Bogge took her,” Azriel said roughly.

Amren froze, deadly rage rippling off of her. “Can’t that damn girl stay out of trouble for once?” she spat. Mor would have laughed, but she was just as terrified for Feyre as Amren was.

“I’m better now,” Mor insisted. “Give me a sword and we’ll go in after her.”

“Easier said than done,” Nesta said, pointing to the manor grounds. The battle had arrived, and legions of men, ally and foe, now separated them from where Feyre was waiting.

Fury rippled through Mor and she shifted her clothing into battle armor, relishing the weight of it on her hips and shoulders. “I’ve been itching for a fight,” she said.

“What about me?” Nesta asked, and Mor’s eyes flicked to hers. Suddenly, her nose was assaulted by a scent that wasn’t wholly Nesta’s, but had something of Cassian in it, too. Her brow furrowed in confusion. “You stay here and guard the Cauldron,” Mor said. “Your magic is impressive, but this kind of battlefield is not the place for you.”

“I fought in the Summer Court,” Nesta argued.

The Inner Circle glanced at each other--none of them had witnessed that battle.

“Please,” Mor said. “Stay here with the Cauldron, and Amren will come back for you when it’s safe.” Amren nodded. “It’s not because you wouldn’t be of help . . . it’s more because Cassian would murder me if anything happened to you.”

Nesta paled and her stormy eyes swirled, but she finally gave a terse nod.

Mor turned to Azriel, her savior, and saw the bloodlust swirling in his eyes. “Let’s go get our High Lady back.”

-

It felt good to shed blood again.

Azriel no longer cared about staying out of the worst of the fray. These people--these pitiful excuses for fae--had taken Mor from him, kept her from him, and he felt no remorse whatsoever as Truth-Teller sliced through them one by one, raining their blood onto the once-green grasses of the Spring Court. He nimbly dodged orbs of fire being vaulted at him by Autumn Court warriors and sent bolts of blue killing power down upon them, extinguishing their flames forever. A bear-like faerie had turned its attention on Winter Court allies, and Azriel landed on its back and plunged his sword through the back of its neck.

It collapsed to the ground, and as Azriel stood upon his trophy, gazing out over the raging battle, he snarled in delight as he watched Morrigan slaughtering dozens of opponents, lesser and High fae alike. She reaped a row of them, and then as another wave approached, she held out her hand and tiny black flames appeared over each of her enemies’ heads. Then she let out a mighty screech like a crow and whirled like a gale, delivering death to any her magic had marked.

Hours and hours passed and yet the battle raged, until at long last the Autumn Court forces followed the example of the Dawn Court, which had retreated not long after the sun had risen. Azriel and Mor stood beside each other on the battlefield, breathing heavily and covered in sweat. The battle was over--for now.

Azriel wasn’t sure what guided him, but his arm wrapped around Mor’s waist and he said, “Let’s go.” Amren had left the battlefield already to go after Feyre, and he didn’t know where she’d gone. They would have to track them down--but first they needed rest.

Mor nodded and winnowed them away a clearing in the forest that had remained untouched by the battle. A small pool gurgled there, and the silence echoed in Azriel’s ears after the roar of the battle.

Mor knelt by the pool and splashed water on her face, her expression grim. Azriel couldn’t stop staring--couldn’t stop drinking in the sight of her, radiant in the wake of war, power still leaking from her pores. “Mor,” he rasped, and she looked up at him.

This was a mistake. He knew it was. But the moment her eyes met his, the desire surged through him like a torrent, breaking through any dam of restraint he had built up inside himself. But she was so beautiful--he’d known this since the moment he’d laid eyes on her over five hundred years ago.

Mor rose to her feet and approached him, but Azriel couldn’t read her expression. She raised her hands to his shoulders and said simply, “Rest.” Her hands began to work the buckles on his pauldrons, causing his empty Siphons to slide to the ground with a thud. She began to work on his gauntlets next, slowly working each strap until those, too, fell in the grass.

“Mor,” Azriel said. “I missed you.” The words--those words were so insignificant compared to what he wanted to say, the flood of feelings he’d been holding back for centuries. “Every damn minute of every damn day.”

Mor was quiet for a moment, her brow knitted as she struggled with a knot on Azriel’s sleeve. “You were with me the whole time.”

“I wasn’t,” Azriel protested, but she cut him off.

“When I was wearing that damned necklace, being made into exactly the sort of thing my family always wanted me to be, and I couldn’t fight it . . . I thought of you, Az. I thought of the years you spent locked away and I remembered that you survived. You were barely allowed to see the light, and yet you survived. If you could handle that . . . then I could do this, too.”

Her hand rose to start on the buckle that held Azriel’s breastplate in place, but he snatched her hand in his and gazed into her eyes, barely breathing. She looked so perfect, sweat-slicked and red-faced, her temple splattered in the blood of her foes . . . and her mouth. Not just her mouth, but the words that came from her lips. He lifted her hand to his stubbled jaw, swallowing back the need to kiss her just as he’d been doing for so long.

“It’s all right, Az,” she murmured. “You can kiss me . . . it’s all right.”

A sob broke from Azriel then, and before he could convince himself not to, he lowered his head and pressed a kiss to her soft mouth. He was afraid at first, afraid that his kiss would be too rough, too coarse, too _much_ \--but she raised herself up on her toes and kissed him deeper. Tears slipped down his face and he pulled away. “Mor,” he said. “I’m not--”

“I don’t want to hear that again,” Mor said sharply. “Not anymore, Az. Do you hear? I’m not waiting anymore. I’m done waiting . . . and I think you are, too.”

Something like a broken laugh escaped Azriel’s throat. He’d been done waiting for centuries, but he hadn’t touched her. Hadn’t tried. Not because he hadn’t wanted to every time she smiled at him or leaned against his shoulder or danced with him, but because he was terribly aware of who they were. “Mor,” he said. “You’re a queen. A High Fae queen for whom men would wage wars. I’m a bastard who was locked in a dungeon for years and was _lucky_ to ever see the light of day. We don’t . . .” He couldn’t even finished the sentence, because he couldn’t bear to speak the lie: _we don’t belong together_. Because he felt it in his blood that they _did_ , that he would stop breathing the moment Mor left this earth, because his very being was so dependent on the glory that trailed in her wake. Even if he walked behind her for the rest of his life, she would be his sun and he would be happy. But he could never ask her to gift him with herself. He was not worthy of such a gift.

Mor drew back from him just a touch. “You know how my power works, don’t you? It cannot be taken from me. I can give it as much as I please. But I _choose_ to whom it goes.”

Azriel actually trembled at the thought of the power for which she had almost been sold off as a girl, the one that had led her to come to the Illyrian camp in the first place, seeking a way to rid herself of the burden. “I thought you gave it to Cassian.”

Mor actually threw her head back and barked out a laugh. “Cassian? He might have taken my maidenhead, but he and I were both two great fools--neither of us had any idea how to handle ourselves.” She saw the question written in Azriel’s brow. “It’s a lie. My power is not tied to my maidenhead.”

Azriel went very still as her words started to register in his mind. “You . . .”

“I am still the Morrigan,” Mor said firmly, “and I can still choose. And Az . . . I’m choosing you.”

A great rush of air escaped Azriel’s lips and his shoulders trembled. No. It couldn’t be possible. She couldn’t be choosing him, not when she was everything light and pure and good and he was nothing but the dregs the shadows left behind. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to level his breathing. She reached up again and finished the straps on his shoulders and along his sides, all while he stood still and prayed to the Mother that he wasn’t dreaming the whole thing.

He heard her gasp as she heaved the enormous breast plate from his chest, revealing the layers underneath, which she slowly started peeling away as well.

“Azriel,” she said, her voice almost scolding. “Look at me.”

He did and almost fell to his knees at the sight of her.

“Am I going to do all the work?” she asked, lifting a single eyebrow.

Azriel’s chest shuddered in nervous laughter, and he lifted his hand to brush her long golden hair over her shoulder. His scarred fingers undid the straps at her shoulders as she had done his, and before too long they were both standing in nothing but their cotton shirts and leggings, their armor in a pile around their feet.

Mor’s cheeks turned slightly pink as she pressed her palm to Azriel’s broad chest, feeling his heart pounding like an army of horses beneath his skin, both from the adrenaline of battle and the terror that struck him at the feeling of her hands on him. His hands lowered and rested on her hips. He could feel her supple skin beneath her thin cotton clothes. The desire didn’t even form fully in his head before he bent down and kissed her again, this time allowing himself a little more freedom, letting his eagerness come through just a little more.

Her kiss in return was perhaps the best gift he’d ever been given.

She pressed her body closer to his and his hand slipped to her backside to hold her close while her arms wrapped around his shoulders. The feeling of her breasts pushed against him, her small gasping breaths as she kissed him on and on . . . it was enough to unleash him. Harden him.

He would follow her anywhere, he decided. Even into hell.

His arm scooped behind her legs and she hoisted herself up, latching her legs around him as he lowered her onto the grass. She laughed, tangling her fingers in his hair, and kissed his cheeks, his nose, every part of his face that she could reach. His hands slid to her abdomen, firm and muscled, and he splayed his fingers there, taking a deep breath before slowly inching them higher . . .

She growled against his mouth and seized his wrists, dragging his hands up beneath her shirt to cup her breasts. “Azriel,” she said, “you’ve been teasing me for five-hundred damned years. I’m out of patience.”

Teasing her? Is that what he’d been doing? He hadn’t known . . . hadn’t realized she’d felt that way. And the smile she was giving him, the certainty in her eyes . . . she knew exactly what she wanted.

And it was him.

His heart hadn’t felt so light in centuries--perhaps ever. It was like flying, but better. Like walking on the stars, perhaps. And he was so overcome by the joy that ripped through him at being _wanted_ , wanted by the woman he’d loved silently for centuries . . . he was so overcome that he pressed his body over hers, covering her, as he hungrily kissed her lips and neck and brushed that sunlit gold hair away from her brow. “Mor,” he breathed between kisses. “ _Mor_.”

She tugged at the hem of his cotton shirt and used her magic to unfasten the buttons around his wings. He in turned peeled her shirt away, and soon they were bare against each other, songs of praise filling Azriel’s head as he savored the touch of her skin against his.

He dragged his mouth down her neck and to her chest, pausing to breathe her in as his nose brushed between her breasts. Then, tentatively, he flicked his tongue out to the side of her breast. She sucked in a delighted gasp. So he did it again, to the same result. Then he opened his mouth and covered her nipple, pressing his lips together and sucking. The sound that Mor made in response was enough to send his blood rushing through him like molten fire. His hand kneaded her other breast as he kissed the one near his mouth, but at long last, he moved lower, continuing his journey down her glorious body.

Her breath hitched as his fingers hooked in her leggings, and she arched her back up to encourage him to roll them lower and lower, his fingers creating trails of fire down her legs. He reached her feet and started to work on her shoes, but she growled, “Leave them.”

“Oh no,” Azriel said, his eyes lighting with rare mischief. “I am leaving nothing unexplored, Morrigan.”

“Az!” she gasped in delighted surprise, and then she giggled, covering her face with her hand. He pulled off first one shoe and then the other, chucking them across the clearing. One may have landed in the pond, but he did not stop to check. He held each of her feet and kissed her toes--they were rank with the scent of sweat and battle, but to him, in this moment, the smell was intoxicating. He dropped her feet and ran his hands back up her legs. Every inhibition that he’d held onto for the past centuries was slipping away. So easily--so easily had she undone him.

Yet, he still paused when his face hovered over that patch of hair between her legs. He’d been with many women, but none . . . none had he ever desired as much as the woman before him now.

Mor sensed his hesitation. “Azriel,” she murmured gently. “Remember . . . I’m choosing you. I want _you_.”

He shuddered and then lowered his mouth to the opening between her legs.

Mor whimpered and arched her back, pressing her hips closer to his mouth. He growled in his chest and then pressed her hips back down into the grass as he kissed and sucked at the flushed skin there. She was already so _wet_ , and he wasn’t sure what willpower was allowing him to continue slowly, to work her patiently, even as she writhed beneath him, begging him to go on further. But this--he’d been imagining this for centuries. Every woman he’d ever bedded had been in preparation for _this_ , for the woman he’d never stopped loving, not for one moment. So he licked her slowly, pressed his lips against her, and held her hips in place as she gasped and moaned. She tasted . . . _glorious_. Exactly as he’d always imagined.

When she was well and damp and gasping his name, he slid a single finger inside her and curled it toward him, stroking her until a faint shriek broke from her lips and she clapped a hand over her own mouth. Then her body seized as trembling overcame her and Azriel kissed her and kissed her through the whole experience.

“ _Damn you_ , Azriel,” Mor gasped when she was through. Her arm was slung over her forehead and she stared at the canopy of the trees above them, her body still trembling.

“What?” Azriel asked, unable to suppress the tickle of nerves in the back of his mind.

Mor sat upright and wrapped her hand around his neck, freezing him to the spot with her chocolate eyes. “You bastard . . . how dare you make me wait five hundred years for that?”

Relief and wonder washed over him and he laughed before kissing her on the mouth, holding her head with the back of his hand and he kissed her sweetly, over and over.

Mor pulled away and she looked him greedily up and down. “What else have you been hiding from me all these years?”

Azriel mouth laid a butterfly kiss upon her neck. “Why don’t I show you?” he grumbled.

Mor reached over his shoulder and ran a hand up the curve of his wing. He shuddered and spat an indistinguishable curse under his breath. She laughed and shifted onto her knees while Azriel pulled away to strip his own pants away, letting his full, hard length spring forth. “Bastard,” she muttered again. He laughed and leaned toward her, but she placed her hand on his chest. “Before we . . . before we do this,” she said, her voice suddenly small. “I have a question for you.”

Azriel’s shoulders tensed. He’d heard about this . . . heard rumors. Cassian had casually said something about a question once, not when he’d known Azriel had been listening. His brother had said that he’d bungled it. And he’d heard rumors from others, that every time Mor bedded someone there was a question beforehand . . . but that the answer was almost impossible to answer. No one ever spoke of the nature of the question, only that there was one.

“Yes?” he breathed, running strands of her hair over her fingers, wishing his nerves had not been so damaged and that he could feel them as keenly as he ought to.

Mor swallowed and said, “What is it that a woman wants most in the world?”

Azriel’s lips parted. _This_ was the question? That was not . . . that was not at all what he had expected. But the desperation and the fear and the worry in Morrigan’s eyes . . . it was enough to make him want to answer correctly. Not for his sake, but for hers.

He would answer this question for her.

-

Mor thought her heart stopped as she watched Azriel puzzle out her question--the question that her power compelled her to ask whenever she took someone to bed, whenever there was a possibility she could choose to gift them. She could still choose--but the person would never even be worthy unless they could answer this question . . . a question passed down to her through generations and generations of women with her power.

Everyone she’d ever slept with had failed to answer correctly.

But she knew Azriel could do it.

Azriel could answer, because he knew it deep in his bones--knew the answer to this ancient question that her own family had forgotten in their desperation to breed power into their bloodlines and sell off their daughters like prized cattle. The answer to this question would elude them forever.

Her father had sold her to Eris, both he and the Autumn Prince believing that her maidenhead was the key to unlocking her gift. This was a myth dredged up generations before Mor. But in secret, in her dreams, her ancestors had whispered this question in her ear and told her that it was the only way she could pass on her gift to someone worthy. Only someone who could answer would be worth the glory she could give them.

She watched Azriel’s face, seeing him puzzle over it, the shadows that surrounded him whispering in his ears at potential answers. But she felt that he wouldn’t get the answer from his shadows, not this time. This answer was deep within him, and had been hidden there since his childhood locked away and unable to obtain freedom. Just as she’d once been locked away and deprived of choices.

“What is it that a woman wants most in the world?” she repeated, chanting a prayer in her mind to the Mother that Azriel would figure it out, that she would be able to gift him as badly as she wanted to.

Then, after a long minute, Azriel met her eyes and murmured, “Sovereignty.”

The words clanged through Morrigan’s skull and skittered across her bones. “What?” she asked, fearing she hadn’t heard right.

“Sovereignty,” Azriel repeated. “The ability to determine her own fate.”

Mor burst into tears and threw herself against him, kissing him fiercely again and again and again. “Yes!” she gasped. “Yes . . . oh, Azriel!”

Now--now she could do this. Every last barrier between them had been removed, and she could give him all that she had been longing to for so long--all that he deserved, even if he wouldn’t admit it.

Her frenzied kisses traced all the way up his jaw and she gripped his face tightly in her hands as she rose taller on her knees, feeling the hard length of him brushing against her stomach.

“I don’t understand,” Azriel admitted through gritted teeth.

“It wasn’t my maidenhead,” she explained through short breaths. “It never was. It was the question . . . only someone who could answer it, who could _understand_ . . .” She trailed off and pressed her forehead to his brow. “You’re _worthy_ , Azriel!”

“No one ever answered it before?” Azriel asked, sounding aghast.

“No one,” Mor said with the shake of her head.

“Dare I ask what Cassian answered?” Azriel asked, sounding amused--which was a relief to Mor. That stumbling block between them, the decision Mor had so foolishly made that night--it seemed that had been cleared away as well.

Mor snorted. “He answered, ‘A big Illyrian cock between her legs.’”

Azriel threw his head back and laughed, such a pure, glorious sound it made Mor’s heart flutter. “He’s such a pillock.”

“Well,” Mor said, her expression sliding into one more devious. “He wasn’t wrong, exactly. I _do_ want a big Illyrian cock between my legs. It’s just not every woman’s cup of tea.” Then, locking eyes with him, she reached down and ran her finger over the length of him, and he growled.

“Mor,” he rumbled.

“Take me, Azriel,” she said, her voice sultry. “I’m yours.”

And he pounced.

The air rushed out of her as she was on her back below him, again. It wasn’t her favorite position, not with anyone else, but for Azriel . . . she couldn’t imagine it any other way. She spread her legs wide for him and her mouth went dry as his hulking frame cast a shadow over her body. “Mor,” he said as he gazed into her eyes. “I love you. I’ve been a bastard too afraid to say it, but it’s true.”

“I appreciate that, Az,” Mor said, her voice tight. “But at the moment I’d really prefer if you _showed_ me.”

Azriel smiled--a true, bright smile that Mor had never been so blessed to see, and he lowered himself over her, sliding his impressive length and girth into her. She let out a whimper through her nose as she clamped her mouth shut, squeezing her eyes tight at the extraordinary feeling of him inside her. Her fingers dug into the grass and pulled, ripping blades of grass up between her fingers, dirt adding to the gore and blood already beneath her nails. “ _Mor_ ,” Azriel breathed. “You are radiant.” He slowly pulled out of her and she instantly missed him. She started to cry out and protest when he entered her again, and her cry turned into a moan in her throat.

“You filthy _tease_!” she spat, bucking her hips around him. He grunted at the sudden motion and plunged himself deeper within her, striking her at her very core. His hands ran over her body until one hand paused on her shin and grabbed it, guiding her leg up to bend at the knee and pushed it up beside her ribcage. Then he did the same with the other leg, until she was fully open to him. The weight of his body pressed down on her as he kissed her breast, her neck, and her hands tangled in his shaggy black hair. His incredible wings spread out on either side of him, and Mor wanted to touch them--but she was so caught up in him that she had to hold his body for dear life. His rhythm became frantic, pulsing into her as though any possibility of going slow was beyond him. She loved it--the passion of him rocking into her. It made the next time all the easier.

As he plunged within her, she felt the bolt sealing her power crack open. The gift that had descended through her line for generations, for millennia, unlocked by so few before her, seeped into her blood, traveling through her body to where she and Azriel were joined.

“What’s happening?” he grunted as he felt it, too.

“My gift,” she gasped. “My gift--it’s for you, Azriel. Glory--power--sovereignty. The true gift of the Morrigan.”

“Mor,” Azriel said hoarsely even as he continued moving inside her. She could feel his fear, his panic, the lingering sense that he wasn’t worthy. But he had answered her question. He was worthy.

They were a tangle of limbs and wings and tongues and fingers and power now. Mor had lost of track of where she ended and he began. One of his hands, which had been trailing roughly over her back and shoulders, now reached between them to coax the woman’s gift between her legs.

Mor felt herself crack open then, and the power rippled from her just as her release wracked her for a second time that day. Azriel panted against her neck and she cried out as he spilled himself inside her, joining them irrevocably--clearing away the past and blazing a trail to the future.

Azriel collapsed on top of her, both of them sweating anew over the sheen that had already coated them both from the battle. Mor savored the pressure of his body against hers and wrapped her arms around him, tucking him close. She pressed a kiss to his brow and then pulled back as she felt a spark there.

Together they shifted until they were sitting before each other, hands still all over each other. Mor just needed to see his face. And her eyes went wide in wonder as she saw a new mark upon his brow, an ancient symbol that struck a familiar chord in her soul. She gestured him to come over to the pond with her and she showed him his reflection. “This, Az. This proves you’re worthy. Not just anyone can bear this mark . . . the Mark of the Morrigan.”

Azriel shuddered and his face crumpled before he buried his nose in her neck. “Thank you,” he breathed, crying without tears.

She guided his face up and kissed him once more upon the brow. “I couldn’t have picked anyone better.” And then, only so she could see him smile again, she gave him a shove and knocked him off balance--straight into the pond. He barked out in protest as he righted himself, but it worked--he was smiling, so brightly and joyfully that Mor’s blood sang at the sight of it. She was so enraptured that she didn’t have time to react before Azriel seized her ankle and dragged her into the pond with him, drawing out a peal of giggles as the water closed in around her.

She swam up to him and draped her arms over his shoulders as his hands found her waist. And together they cleansed themselves of the stain of war and the marks of the past, to rise again and march into a new future they would forge together . . . as masters of their own fate.


End file.
